- December 1, 2012
The Albany Tribune features article “A Pension Deficit Disorder”
Visit the publisher's website • See the article - December 1, 2012
The Examiner features report “A Pension Deficit Disorder: The Massive CEO Retirement Funds and Underfunded Worker Pensions at Firms Pushing Social Security Cuts”
Visit the publisher's website • See the reportA new report released last week by the Institute for Policy Studies examines CEOs of public companies who have endorsed the “Fix the Debt” campaign. The report, “Pension Deficit Disorder: The Massive CEO Retirement Funds and Underfunded Worker Pensions at Firms Pushing Social Security Cuts,” finds that these CEOs, while calling for ordinary Americans to take cuts in Social Security and Medicare, are sitting on an average of $9 million each in retirement funds. Maybe even more surprising, most are also running large deficits in their own employees’ pension funds.
“The Fix the Debt CEOs are trying to persuade policymakers and the public that cuts to Social Security and Medicare are necessary to avoid economic ruin,” said report co-author Sarah Anderson. “A better way to strengthen our economy would be to raise revenues through fair taxation of the wealthy and Wall Street, eliminating subsidies for polluters, and cutting military spending.”
- November 30, 2012
Common Dreams features report “The CEO Campaign to ‘Fix’ the Debt: A Trojan Horse for Massive Corporate Tax Breaks”
Visit the publisher's website • See the reportIncredulous that Wall Street investment bankers and billionaire CEOs have descended on Washington in the midst of ongoing budget talks to tell Americans that they should "lower their expectations" when it comes to the security of their retirement and future health care, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders took to the Senate floor Thursday to call out the audacity of corporate-minded millionaires and billionaires, calling them the new "face of class warfare" in the United States.
. . . as a recent report from the Institute for Policy Studies aimed to show, the 'Fix the Debt' campaign, which has raised $60 million to lobby for a debt deal that "would reduce corporate taxes and shift costs onto the poor and elderly," is really just a Trojan horse designed to use an invented debt crisis to achieve long-held agenda goals.
The CEOs involved in the group, including Blankfein, are trying to "pass themselves off as noble leaders who are willing to compromise in order the save America from financial ruin,” explain co-authors of the report Scott Klinger and Sarah Anderson. But the reality is that these CEOs are "leveraging the 'Fiscal Cliff'" in order to push age old attempts to avoid paying taxes at the expense of those in need, they say.
. . . “Think about the arrogance of these guys on Wall Street who were bailed out by the middle class of this country when their greed and recklessness nearly destroyed the financial system and now they come to Capitol Hill to lecture Congress and the American people about the need to cut programs for working families,” [Sanders] said.
- November 29, 2012
Thom Hartmann Show features report “A Pension Deficit Disorder: The Massive CEO Retirement Funds and Underfunded Worker Pensions at Firms Pushing Social Security Cuts”
Visit the publisher's website • See the report[A]s the Institute for Policy Studies discovered, there's good reason why these CEOs want to target social safety nets like Social Security...it's because they don't need them. They're all sitting on massive retirement assets, averaging over $9 million each.
- November 28, 2012
Blue Table Talk features article “A Pension Deficit Disorder”
Visit the publisher's website • See the article - November 28, 2012
The Nation features report “A Pension Deficit Disorder: The Massive CEO Retirement Funds and Underfunded Worker Pensions at Firms Pushing Social Security Cuts”
Visit the publisher's website • See the reportThat’s not exactly “shared sacrifice.” A report from the Institute for Policy Studies notes that the 63 CEOs behind “Fix the Debt” would reap $134 billion in tax windfalls for their companies just from a territorial tax system alone.
- November 28, 2012
New Jersey Newsroom features report “The CEO Campaign to ‘Fix’ the Debt: A Trojan Horse for Massive Corporate Tax Breaks”
Visit the publisher's website • See the report[A]ccording to the Institute for Policy Studies, their ideas of change also include massive tax breaks for themselves and their corporations. They are lobbying for a “territorial tax system” which means that they would not have to pay federal taxes on any money they earned overseas and brought back into the U.S. This would amount to $134 billion bonus for these companies.
- November 28, 2012
New Jersey Newsroom
Visit the publisher's websiteThe CEO Fiscal Leadership Council is made up of 63 companies, including heavy weights such as GE, Boeing, Honeywell and Goldman Sachs. In particular, they advocate changes that would “reform the tax code and cut low-priority spending,” and "keep debt under control over the long-term by focusing on the long-term growth of entitlement programs."
However, according to the Institute for Policy Studies, their ideas of change also include massive tax breaks for themselves and their corporations. . . .
The companies want the government to cut spending – but here the message is decidedly mixed. While advocating cuts in entitlement spending, Boeing has paid its lobbyists $12 million since last January to fight proposed cuts to defense and aerospace spending.
- November 28, 2012
The Nation features report “The CEO Campaign to ‘Fix’ the Debt: A Trojan Horse for Massive Corporate Tax Breaks”
Visit the publisher's website • See the reportThat’s not exactly “shared sacrifice.” A report from the Institute for Policy Studies notes that the 63 CEOs behind “Fix the Debt” would reap $134 billion in tax windfalls for their companies just from a territorial tax system alone. That naturally would increase, not decrease, the deficit, so somebody’s got to pay—hence the Very Serious pleas to “reform” Medicare and Social Security.
“These CEOs paint a stark picture of hypocrisy,” said Scott Klinger, co-author of that IPS report, in a statement. “They’re simply taking advantage of the so-called ‘fiscal cliff’ to push the same old agenda of more corporate tax breaks while shifting costs onto the poor and elderly.”
- November 28, 2012
The Washington Post features report “A Pension Deficit Disorder: The Massive CEO Retirement Funds and Underfunded Worker Pensions at Firms Pushing Social Security Cuts”
Visit the publisher's website • See the report"Liberal and conservative groups alike are circulating reports that allege that the chief executives who comprise Fix the Debt run companies that have been promoting a “rash of corporate tax breaks” in the name of pro-growth tax reform. Beyond that, the group’s CEO members have been criticized by the left-leaning Institute for Policy Studies for seeking cuts in Social Security and Medicare for elderly Americans 'while sitting on an average of $9 million each in retirement funds.'"
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In many countries around the world, there is growing momentum behind proposals to place a very small tax on transactions of stock, currency, derivatives, and other financial assets. Such financial speculation taxes are one of the few available options that could generate the enormous financial resources required to pay for the continuing costs of the global financial and economic crisis, including reducing the high rate of job loss, and to achieve key development, health, education and climate change objectives in developing countries. Even at very low rates, such taxes could also discourage the type of short-term financial speculation that has little social value but poses high risks to the economy.